


Bad Moon Rising

by SubsonicTea



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Driving, F/F, Late Night Conversations, Melancholy, Music, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-02-16 17:37:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18696163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubsonicTea/pseuds/SubsonicTea
Summary: Ever since peace was made with the Diamonds, Pearl has found herself with a lot of time on her hands, time spent behind the wheel during night drives. She drives to fill a void she feels, a void that can’t be filled. She hopes for, longs for, something to come along and get her out of the rut she’s found herself in.———————————Lapis spends her days alone, isolated from everyone including her housemate Peridot. Forced to move into a new home, she spends her days watching television and listening to CDs, that is when she isn’t disassociating, growing more and more distant from everyone each day.UPDATE: the fic is currently retired as i write a new version. Sorry.





	1. Intro

A muffled plinking surrounded her, encompassing her entire soundscape, intermittently accompanied by squeaky wipes. Taking in a deep breath, Pearl opened her eyes. She was in the driver’s seat of Greg’s Dondai Supremo while a nighttime rain thundered down upon her. She had returned to the car sometime before her return to homeworld and filled it with petrol, taking it out for a spin every once in a while, but ever since coming back after making peace with the Diamonds and helping the corrupted gems, Pearl had seen a lot of time on her hands, a lot of time spent behind the wheel on nights like this.

Buried in her thoughts, she turnt to the foggy window to her side. She could barely see the flashing lights of the boardwalk past the raindrops, their colorful glow wrapping around each trailing droplet. She felt like something was missing, a part of her that was no longer there.

Drifting out of her mind, she turned the keys, starting up the Supremo, the hum of the engine putting her at ease as the air started up.

Pearl hadn’t known why she returned to the car, nor why she felt a connection to it.

She sat there gripping the steering wheel for a while, letting her thoughts settle and the cool air to circulate. Turning on one of the dome lights she then popped open the tray that separated the seats, revealing a small collection of tapes and CDs. She sifted through them, her hand stopping upon a jewel case whose artwork was adorned with an image of a man and woman sitting in a very squashed car. She hadn’t listened to this cd yet, so she hoped it was better than the other junk that sandwiched it; a shiver ran up her spine when she remembered the Childz Jam 8 tape. She took the cd out of the case and popped it in.

She struggled to see out of the rear window as she backed out due to all the rain fogging it up. Turning around, she hit the play button while driving out of her spot.

 

 _Ki no kiita_  
_Otoko no ko_  
_Koko shibaraku_  
_Deawanai_

 

She drove off of Beach Access Dr and onto Boardwalk St as a bass fill vibrated through the car.

 

 _Yasashikute_  
Kawaikute  
Okanemochi no  
Otoko no ko

 

The bass fill returned once more, but this time a new line sprung up once it ended, along with more instruments.

 

_Honto ni chikagoro  
Fukeiki_

 

She passed by the statue of (former) mayor Dewey and Dewey Park.

 

_Honto ni chikagoro  
Nandaka tsumaranai_

 

‘Why’s that statue still up?’ She pondered as she took a right turn onto Chestnut Road.

 

 _Ki no kiita_  
Otoko no ko  
Kono kisetsu wa  
Deawanai

 

Pearl quickly learned the ins and outs of the Supremo following the days since she retrieved it, and was getting pretty confidant in her ability to drive it.

 

 _Yasashikute_  
Kawaikute  
Okanemochi no  
Otoko no ko

 

She took a left onto the highway.

 

_Honto ni chikagoro  
Fukeiki_

 

Pearl had to be honest…

 

_Honto ni sekai wa  
Fukeiki_

 

While she wasn’t so sure of it at first…

 

_Honto ni chikagoro  
Tsumannai_

 

This song…

 

_Honto ni sekai wa  
Tsumannai_

 

Was pretty damn good.

 

_Honto ni kami-sama  
Anata wa fukohei_

 

She was about to chastise herself for using such a foul word but was interrupted as darkened trees sped by and opened up to a vista of rolling hills and the open sea, softly lit by the few boats out during the storm, the beauty of which threw the thought out the window. Pink had opened her eyes to the beauty of Earth and she hasn’t ceased to love the views she got of it from Beach City, even after all those years.

Something felt a bit off though, a sense of disillusionment that had sprung up ever since peace came. Her emotions seemed to fade away...

But she was surrounded by things that she loved and enjoyed...so why was she so sad, so empty...did she long for something?...for someone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of my first fic! This fic originated around a year or so ago, back when it was known as Beach City Nights. It was originally going to be a story where pearl drives around and...uh...gets around. Needless to say the main ship wasn’t Pearlapis back then. It was shaped into what falls before your eyes a few months ago which was pretty easy as there wasn’t much written, just 5 short paragraphs. But I’m glad to finally release this to the world! 
> 
> And yes the title is a music reference, but not in reference to the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, but rather my favorite band, Sonic Youth. Their music will be part of the story, maybe big, maybe small, we’ll just have to see.
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts and criticisms so that i may improve.
> 
>  
> 
> Music Notes
> 
> The album that Pearl listens to is Playboy & Playgirl by the wonderful band Pizzicato Five, which I’m listening to as i write this! They’re one of my favorite bands and the entire album is fantastic. Check ‘em out!
> 
>  
> 
> Special Thanks
> 
> Thanks to @varibean for proofreading the final draft!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for self harm at the end of “chunk” 3 and small mention of self harm scars in the final “chunk”.

“How could you betray me like that! I loved you!” 

The fuzz of white noise seemed to have taken priority over the audio that cut through the dark, messy room that housed the old CRT. Lapis couldn’t care less though, as the stickers that plastered the plastic shell of the TV were more interesting than the show, which only stood in place as the light for the living room more than anything else. She tried not to disturb the sleeping Pumpkin as she shifted in her seat on the sofa so that she reclined more.

 

“Our love had to end, you see, for we…are siblings…” 

‘Wow,’ Lapis thought to herself, ‘I didn’t know this show could get much worse than it already was.’ She had to keep on watching. 

“So then all the times we…?” 

“Yes.” 

“N-no...NO!”

The face of shock on the character wasn’t too dissimilar to the face of bewilderment adorning Lapis. 

“And so, to vindicate my honor, and the loss of my purity to you, I must take vengeance upon thee!” 

With those words, the character pulled out a sword and lunged and their sibling. Lapis fished around for the remote, grasping it from underneath the sofa. Pointing it at the TV, she increased the volume, or rather she would’ve, if not for the fact that her finger slipped and pressed down on the power button. In an instant, the room went pitch black. The piles of history and culture books, the dirty clothes strewn around, the boxes filled with meep morps, the soft gray sofa, Pumpkin, everything...gone.

 

* * *

 

The two gems stood before a small housing unit as the sun started to settle underneath the horizon behind their backs, basking everything in a warm orange hue.

“Well, this is home sweet home...I guess.” As she said it, the smaller gem leaned against a cardboard box that was almost her height. “It sucks that we have to start over again,” replied the blue haired gem, watching their pumpkin running around their new surroundings,”I’m just glad that one of us likes our new home.”

 

Just like their previous, now destroyed, dwelling, the house was abandoned by Greg’s family, making it the perfect candidate. The countryside home was small, comprising of a few rooms and a garage, all on one floor. This was the second time the gems have visited the house, but neither time had it charmed them, they were still too attached to the barn and leaving its ruins behind took a lot of strength. The only home they knew, loved, gone.

 

* * *

 

A soft summer wind accompanied the drone of the cicadas as Lapis sat outside sifting through a cardboard box, the overly-large shirt she found in a closet flowing alongside the breeze. The box held numerous CDs, cassettes, and vinyls from years past. Lapis had already gave a couple of albums a listen on the “boombox” as Steven had put it (even though it doesn’t really explode as the name suggested), but none had quite caught her interest. She lazily sifted through the albums, of which the previous owner didn’t organize whatsoever, with birthday song cassette tapes leading to vinyls with crude artwork.

 

What interested Lapis the most was the images adorning the various sleeves and cases, whether they were good or bad she thought they not only tried to be the most attention seeking, but also give some sort of insight into the music, though some succeeded at it more than others. She tossed aside yet another  _ That’s Music I Guess!  _ album and laid her fingers upon a pink sleeve. Pulling it up, her gaze was met with a blurry shot of guitar  _ drenched  _ in pink. ‘I honestly need to figure out how to listen to these... _ things _ ,’ Lapis thought as she set it aside in a pile and grabbed a couple of CD cases. She took a last glance at the vinyls seeing yet another blurry cover, this time of a bunch of people in a hallway, and started to shuffle through the jewel cases.

 

She sat there for a while, swatting bugs away and relaxing on the gravel of the driveway watching the clouds roll by. Tossing aside a CD with three weird creatures on it (‘Fourth one I came across with that purple guy on it’), Lapis reached the last CD. Set against the soft, cool hues of a sunset stood a silhouette of a scarecrow, with wispy orange flames streaking out the jack o’ lantern which took the place of it’s head, the album title written in a lime green suspended just above. Lapis was taken aback, the stark image gave off a sense of unease, not hurt by the fact that the lit head had a resemblance to her beloved pet. What would she do if Pumpkin ended up that way? Could Pumpkin end up like that? She hadn’t really thought about the logistics of Pumpkin’s being. Could she die? What happens if she rots?  _ Can  _ she rot? It had been a while since Pumpkin came into her and Peridot’s lives and she still looked the same as before. She sat there, deep in morbid thought and worried about her pet, staring at her bruised knees.

 

Her...bruised...knees…Lapis stared at them. How is it possible for gems to bruise themselves? Granted Lapis wasn’t really good at human biology, but she knew you had to bleed to bruise. She stared at her arm, at the bug bites upon it.

“...”

 

Gems healed minor wounds fairly quickly but any major ones cause them to lose their physical body. But do they bleed? If so, why? Lapis looked around, and upon finding a jagged enough rock, she brought it to her hand. She stared at it for a while, her right hand could feel the cool ridges of the rock while her left started to sting from gripping it too tight. She took a deep breath and jammed it in.

“Fuck!” She recoiled. A stream of red started to flow from the wound, dropping…

 

* * *

_ SPLAT.  _ “Good going Amethyst! You just mucked up the floor!”

Lapis snapped out of her trance.

“C’mon P, the place was already a mess!”

Amethyst had come over to the two gems home, something that she had noticeably been doing more and more often. A plate of spaghetti fell face down on the dark hardwood floor, spilling sauce all over, having been knocked down when Amethyst made a fairly corny joke and slammed her fist down on kitchen island that served as their dining table.

“The house is not  _ that  _ messy Ams! And anyways, this is a completely different type of mess!”

Lapis looked up, across the counter, at the smaller gems. They sat next to each other on the opposite end from Lapis, and even though they were arguing, their faces didn’t look angry, or really negative, at all.

“Ok!Ok! I’ll clean it up, just for you.”

Amethyst’s hand slid off the counter and into the space between her and Peridot, who quickly followed suit.

 

Lapis watched as the gems stared deeply into each others eyes, lost in their own world, far away from her. The distance between the blue gem and the pair seemed to grow more and more as time went on. She broke her gaze away from them.

“Oh yeah Lappy, Amethyst was gonna stay the night again for another sleepover. You wouldn’t mind being in the living room again, would you?”

Lapis grunted in response, staring at the floor. These “sleepovers” were becoming a common event, and she didn’t have no choice but to let them happen, whatever she could say not changing a damn thing. All she could do was glare at the pasta as it gathered flies.

 

* * *

 

Lapis sat on the slanted roof, watching as the full moon rose, two wet spots on her shirt sticking to her back, feeling the dry shingles beneath the scars. She stayed like that for a while, gazing out at the starry surroundings, before eventually leaving her trance. She glanced at her side where the boombox stood alongside an album from earlier in the week. She dragged the audio system closer to her while picking up the case.  _ Bad Moon Rising _ was written in green with  _ Sonic Youth _ right underneath it in red. Popping open the case, she took the black cd out in placed it into the disc player. A small whirl started to ring out before a 12 was displayed.

 

She hit play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet again thanks for reading, commenting (even though I ain’t got any yet), and leaving kudos! I look forward to writing and releasing more. If you haven’t seen already, I got a Twitter for writing updates and such! @StefaniWrites is where I’ll post whats goin on with the fic, some thoughts related to them, what I listen to and watch while writing and probably some other stuff!
> 
>  
> 
> Music Notes:
> 
> The albums Lapis looks at are:
> 
> Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. A landmark album in alt rock and shoegaze. Definitely give it a listen.
> 
> No New York by Various Artists. A compilation album containing many bands in the New York no-wave scene in the late 70s and early 80s. I haven’t had the chance to give it a listen but it was pretty influential.
> 
> Run Jump Skip and Sing by Barney. It’s a Barney album...hell i don't even know if it WAS released on CD.
> 
> Bad Moon Rising by Sonic Youth. My favorite album from my favorite band and the namesake of this fic. It’s their darkest work both lyrically and musically and their second album. Landmark in Noise and a quintessential album of theirs. LISTEN TO IT, cant praise it enough though it may not be for everyone.
> 
> If you gave any of the albums and bands I mention during the fic, please let me know yr thoughts! It’d mean a lot to me.


	3. An Apology, Explanation, and Update

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not updating this fic in 5 months. I really am. There are quite a few reasons why, but namely distractions, the quality, and my unhappiness with the fic itself. This is due to me deciding to keep it in the show’s canon, which was a remnant from an old version of this story.   
This unhappiness with the fic wasn’t really helped by my general unhappiness in life, what with me having one of the worst months of my life back in July and my ever present depression hitting an all time low, which drove me into a somewhat comatose state where i would rarely leave my room, aside from obligations i had, for a month and a half. But thankfully, I’m in a better state now, better than I’ve been for a decade in fact, and with it comes a drive to write more, to continue this fic.

I will be writing a new version of Bad Moon Rising, the third to be exact. The main difference will be the fact that the fic will not be taking place in the show’s universe, meaning that they are no longer gems but rather normal human beings, which should make writing a lot easier. This also means that quite a bit has to be rewritten. Expect the first chapter to be dropped sometime this month.  
I have other fics that I’ve been wanting to do (and have already started an extremely rough draft of) though they won’t be done for a while.

I’ve got a couple of people to thank for keeping me sane during my hiatus, though I’ll only be mentioning the ones who are on AO3. First off is spooky-lilith, a shit writer who is buko no pico’s biggest fan (her words, not mine).  
In all actuality, she is the author of one of the best fics I’ve read, a great friend of mine (I was a fan before i was a friend), and an all around great person. Her friendship is one i hold dearly.  
Second is Adojo, whose fic, Remember When, made me start writing fanfiction myself and is also a good friend. Had a ton of fun playing melee online with them (something we oughta do more). Another friendship i hold dearly.

With all that aside, I really am sorry about my inactivity with this fic.

That’s all I really wanted to say, but I guess I can write down a list of the various distractions that came my way these past couple months for shits and giggles:  
Chrono Trigger  
Summer school  
Building this (https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10588631) motherfucker (it took a week)  
Late nights chatting with online friends   
Getting bonked out with my older bro  
And listening to too much damn music


End file.
